Come hear about the 2010-2013 McKenzie River Wild Trout Population Study, hosted by the Cascade Family Flyfishers! Wesley United Methodist Church, 1385 Oakway Rd, Eugene, OR The meeting will start at 7:00 and usually goes till 8:30. Guests and new members are always welcome. Come join us for a night of fly fishing fun....

A big thanks to all of our volunteers – over 100 in all – who contributed over 2,500 hours to the study effort. Our volunteers caught over 1,900 trout and 1,100 other fish during the course of the study. This study would not have been possible without your help! We’ve reconfigured our website. Please visit our homepage or jump straight to the...

Esteemed citizen scientists,I’m pleased to let you know that the long-rumored Trout Study wrap-up meeting is finally about to happen, surmounting a raft of logistical issues that led to the delay. The meeting will take place on Tuesday, J…une 10, 6-7 pm at Springfield City Hall (225 5th St.) in the Council Meeting Room near the Library.Dave Thomas, Scott Kinney and I will have the written reports and go over the results for the 2013 sampling season. (Hint: they look very good.) As you know, the study was terminated at the end of last season prior to the planned 5th year of tagging that would have taken place this year. So in this meeting we will also be summarizing the entire study period, trying to put it all in perspective.We think that this study has been an important success, from several points of view. First, the results confirm that when a management regime is implemented that optimizes conditions for native wild fish on a river like the McKenzie, the wild fish population responds and the quality of the fishery improves. Second, it has demonstrated that concerned citizens, working together with government fish and wildlife professionals, can generate high quality results and have a big impact on fishery management. We have been told that the scale, persistence and caliber of this study’s effort has set a new standard for ODFW-sponsored citizen science across the state. You, the volunteers, made that happen. It is the results of your dedication that we will discuss on June 10. Hoping to see all of you at the meeting! You can RSVP on Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/events/289894584511769...

Our trackers floated from Hendricks to Bellinger on Friday, 6/8, and located eight fish, including Eeyore, Dasha, Sonya, Radio, Finn, Lenny, Waldo, and Wanda. These fish haven’t moved much in the preceding several weeks. Finn and Wanda have not moved in several months. Finn has been hanging around RM 20.4, and Wanda at RM 22.7. Many of the volunteers have suspected that one or both of these fish are dead. On Sunday, 6/10, one of our volunteer crews was tagging fish for the Mark & Recapture Study. They had caught several fish on the evening… Julia was fishing a softhackle at RM 20.4, midstream (abeam of the log on river left), and hooked a nice fish. We landed it and when it was in the bucket, I noticed it had a floy tag – Julia’s first recaptured fish. Nice. I got to work scraping off the algae and read #02811. I brought the fish out to measure, and saw an 8” long wire protruding from its abdomen! Awesome! Sure enough, we’d recaptured #013, Finn, who had been tagged on 10/19, and hadn’t moved a lick since. When tagged, he was 297mm – yesterday he measured out at 318mm and appeared in good...

We’ve sent out tracking boats the past few weekends, and little has changed with the status of the tracked fish. We are still unable to locate the following: Nigel, Gil, Rusty, Dixie, Sven, Harvey, Ole, and Lloyd. We do have good fixes on 12 other fish, though no substantial movements have been observed. It is suspected that #022 (Wanda) is dead, and has been for a while. Check out everyone’s locations with Follow Our Fish! The Mark & Recapture Study is progressing nicely, with about 200 fish tagged to date. There have been some remarkable fish caught so far this year, with 495mm, 480mm, and 475mm rainbows receiving tags. For those of you who speak in inches, these are 19-20″ fish. Anglers have also noticed an increase in the number of fish in the 200-300mm (8-12″) class this year. Fewer small fish are being caught (less than 200mm), and more medium fish. This seems to be a nice trend and makes fishing more fun. Get out there while you can – we have about a month left in the...